Tycho, I think we're the only two people posting in this thread who find sparks to be an abomination and feel that MiniCons don't really exist. :)

07-02-2006

Tycho

I say "let the Mouse Droids take on the min-Cons and we'll see who wins!"

And I don't even know who Sparks is. The Alternators RULE!

07-02-2006

JediTricks

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tycho

Thank you for the info again, JT. I forgot. It's late. And the info about Tracks and Meister shelf-warmers will prove very helpful, too.

A likely excuse. ;) Good luck finding one, and let us know if you do.

Hmm, I think I may not be the only person posting in this thread who finds Chux to be an abomination and doesn't really exist. :p

Tycho, the "spark" is the Transformer soul, a fragment of the Allspark, Primus' life force. And your precious mouse droids don't even have wheels, they're just hollow shells that smell bad, so Minicons take the gold.

07-02-2006

Tycho

Quote:

Originally Posted by JediTricks

Tycho, the "spark" is the Transformer soul, a fragment of the Allspark, Primus' life force. And your precious mouse droids don't even have wheels, they're just hollow shells that smell bad, so Minicons take the gold.

OK - I thought Cybertron was the originator "god" that created each and every one of the Transformer's souls - giving them something of himself? The planet was actually what the god transformed into himself, and Unicron was the evil twin brother who was jealous- or something like that. I never heard of Primus - some background please (and relate it to G1 somehow so I can understand it). I've read only part of DK's guidebook to Transformers.

And Mouse Droids don't smell bad! They smell like success - when you successfully leave Wal-Mart or Target with new little plastic toys you didn't have before. "I love the smell of plastic in the morning." Have you sniffed a Mouse Droid lately?

07-02-2006

JediTricks

Quote:

OK - I thought Cybertron was the originator "god" that created each and every one of the Transformer's souls - giving them something of himself? The planet was actually what the god transformed into himself

That is pretty much it, and it turns out that Primus *is* the planet Cybertron.

Here's the review of Menasor, I did it freestyle and naturally it turned out way too long. :p

Transformers Cybertron Menasor - I bought this specifically because the included Minicon fits inside the chest, and also my Decepticon ranks always need bolstering. Let me start off by saying that I don't think Hasbro's packaging department understands what this figure is about at all, they misinterpreted how the vehicle mode should be put together, what the electronic gimmick does, what's going on with the Minicon's inclusion into secondary alt mode, and why the Minicon goes into the chest in bot mode; I also think they needed to make 1 more pass at this thing's design before releasing it as there's a few too many questionable choices and downright flaws.

Vehicle mode as the toy seems to be designed is a dual-drill tank, there's not much more here than a robot face down, the arms are close to the body and plug into the feet stabilizing the rear end, the packaging and instructions suggest that even though the arms and feet have that obviously-intentional interlocking feature, they're NEVER used so the arms stick further out to the side and look silly while the rear end just flops about as it doesn't lock down (plus with the arms close and plugged into the feet, it looks less like a robot laying face down). Menasor's colors are ok but nothing to write home about, they're a cool tone (dark blue with light tan) which would work for a sea vehicle but he's a land drill. The sculpted detail is good, some little and big details with nothing blank or boring, and the tiny cockpit on top suggests he's very very large; there's a stubby clear aqua cannon in front of the cockpit. There are 6 minicon hardpoints on Menasor, only 1 does anything - attach the Heavyload to the right arm, slide it forward, and the clear aqua claws reveal while the drill rotates (it's kinda stiff though). The key gimmick sets off an annoying sound and a little red light behind the left arm's clear aqua drill head, the instructions say that when you turn the wheel that rotates the drill it sets off sounds, but this sets off no sounds at all - new or otherwise - so save your batteries (like Vector Prime, the cyber key gimmick is only about electronics and thus pretty worthless). The left drill is supposed to spin when you roll him but the wheel is too shallow to engage often. Heavyload, has an ok but nothing special vehicle mode, a plow dump truck with a very small minicon symbol sculpted on the side of the bed, the black and dark aqua are ok but the gold-tan plastic doesn't work. Heavyload can also form the middle of the plow blade at the front of Menasor's secondary vehicle mode, split the plow apart and rotate the plow's internal wheels, fold up Heavyload's plow, slide the tabs on the rear of the truck bed into the plow halves - Menasor's arms also need to be moved out of the way and I think they're supposed to be up in the air actually (there's wheels on the plow blade which could only come into play with the arms up), done this way it doesn't look half bad really.

As for Menasor's transformation I've seen Minicons with better ones, the Ultra curse lives on! Basically just stand him up, move the hips down, straighten limbs, and if you want to, open the half-hearted shell behind the head to create half-hearted wings. The instructions give him a construction mode which is literally just not moving the hips out of position, it looks ridiculous and squat with super-huge arms. Hell, even the minicon here gets a more creative transformation with the torso folding down and the head flipping over.

Menasor's full robot mode has some decent paint and lots of detail sculpting, the only weathering though is some brushed silver behind the drills of the "hands". The head is pretty alien, almost birdlike with no mouth or nose and just a little nasty-looking, the crest and eyes are lightpiped. Menasor's chest has a small Decepticon logo painted on a window, just below that are a pair of blasters that can rotate from all the way up to all the way down. Menasor's build is big but not wide which is good, the size comes from the long arms and big boots (the rest of the figure is dark aqua, black, and gold-tan so why they left the boots all light tan is beyond me); there are several detail panels inserted into various areas, an interesting way to bring more to the party. Menasor is fairly well articulated with standard neck, universal shoulders and hips, swivel biceps and thighs, hinged elbows and knees and ankles, and rotating "wrists" - a lot of the parts are ratchets even though Menasor isn't really heavy enough that he must have 'em. The drill gimmicks still do the same thing, and the top wheel on the left arm really works great here. Since there wasn't much to the vehicle mode, the only kibble are the wings sticking out the back. I wish the right claw wasn't tied into the minicon gimmick, without that claw the robot mode's long arms both end in drills which makes him unable to do a lot of stuff, the claw really doesn't even work that well since the drill even retracted gets in the way by sticking out 3/4ths the length of the claw. Menasor's bot mode looks good and even balanced, and if you ignore the fact that he's supposed to be WAAAAY bigger than the other Cybertron figures, he fits in well with the Cybertron scale being around the same size as non-super-mode Optimus. 2/3rds of the minicon hardpoints end up unusable as they're on the inside of the lower leg, in fact the hardpoints on each leg actually hit each other when he's standing upright.

Unfortunately, Menasor has a major design flaw, his waist is supposed to slide together but the halves only hold by 2 squares which don't lock or anything so the waist comes apart incredibly easily, violently throwing him into the splits. This is pretty disasterous really as it undermines the robot mode so thoroughly, and since the hardpoints push apart straight standing legs his best chances for the waist not coming apart are a 1-click-out spread leg pose (luckily this is a good pose). It looks like the 2 squares were supposed to have tabs going on as well but it didn't happen and the figure suffers greatly.

Heavyload's robot mode is bulky and wide with a tiny head set far back and a lot of backpack behind him, his arms are long and thin with fists sculpted into the underside halves of the truck bed, his legs are proportional boots, and his minicon connection point is now hidden inside his back, there's a little sculpted detail but he needs more as he seems rather plain; that plow kibble on his backpack pops off too easily. The color is mostly all gold-tan with black arms and aqua legs, his face is a small red visor. He's got ball-jointed shoulders on sideways hinges from the transformation scheme, so he can actually raise his arms to the sides; ball-jointed elbows; hinged hips; and his mid-torso is hinged from transformation so he can lean forward, this joint is sorta loose though. He's not among my favorite Minicons but also definitely not the worst.

Open Menasor's chest and inside is a lot of sculpted detailing, even on the inside of the door. The inside is exactly the shape of Heavyload standing up, slide him in, close the door and he's even got a window you can see his head through, Hasbro calls this minicon-storage but I think it's meant to suggest that Heavyload is piloting Menasor like a battlesuit which seems really cool.

Overall, Hasbro's packaging aside, the vehicle mode ain't that bad, the minicon interaction there is alright, the bot looks better than I expected, and I love the minicon-in-the-chest gimmick. Even if I overlook that he doesn't exactly have hands and the electronic gimmick is awful and the vehicle mode rear end doesn't lock down, he still has a very serious flaw in how his waist falls apart constantly and this kills the figure.

07-02-2006

El Chuxter

Tycho, Primus originated in the last 25 issues of Marvel's Transformer comic (#56-80). Basically, the line was going to pot, so they brought in the popular writer of the UK Transformers comic (Simon Furman) and essentially gave him free reign to turn Transformers into a huge sci-fi epic. He did an excellent job, though it didn't help sales enough to keep the book from eventually being cancelled. I think that whole story arc is in a few trade paperbacks, and I highly recommend checking them out.

Unicron was a dark god, the antithesis of Primus, and both were trapped in planetoids near the dawn of time when Primus decided it was better to sacrifice himself than to allow Unicron to survive. Unicron learned how to manipulate his new shell, becoming the nasty entity we know and love, and Primus created the Transformers to defeat him. Unicron could only be defeated by the Matrix, Primus' life force, or by a unified Autobot-Decepticon army.

(I should mention that the TV show and the comic were different continuities.)

Sparks originated in Beast Wars and, well, were retconned into G1 when Dreamwave put out their pice of carp comic a couple of years ago. They do not really exist. True G1 Transformers call their souls, well, souls. End of story. (And they don't call themselves G1, since there are no other Transformers.) :p

07-02-2006

figrin bran

i'll take sparks over midichlorians any day :p (though they took that highfalutin concept too far in Beast Machines)

i picked up titanium starscream and the ark today. i'm kind of wishing i didn't get the first one. the sculpt isn't that great and even some of the takara pvc's and heroes collection have better sculpts. i also didn't like the boba fett carkoon esque vapor trails that you use to stand Starscream up.

the ark on the other hand is nicely done though i wish the silver flaps on the ends of the wings could have been die cast as well and not plastic.

07-02-2006

Chaddymac

Speaking of Primus, I bought Cybertron Primus at TRU the other day. I think he's pretty cool. Looks great next to Unicron in either mode, actually. I like his transformation too. The cyber key post thingy (checks instructions...) also known as the "Omega Lock" kind of transforms him for you. But I got to say, it's still pretty fun. And he looks cool in either mode. I recommend him.

07-02-2006

Tycho

What does Primus transform into?

Why do Decepticons exist?

07-02-2006

Adam

Quote:

Originally Posted by JediTricks

That is pretty much it, and it turns out that Primus *is* the planet Cybertron.